Poll

Opinion

It is difficult indeed to put our thoughts into words, but we very much appreciate (the community’s) kind and helpful words, deeds and gestures at a time when these things mean so much. Carroll Turner White (C.T.) was a friend to many and a good role model to all of us. He will be sorely missed by his family and all who knew him.

No on the Georgetown proposal that would add 1.5 percent to the sales tax in a tradeoff for a 2-mill reduction in property taxes. I’m not sure of the logic, if any, behind it, but it makes me wonder who pushed it and their agenda. The only ones who seem to benefit are upscale homeowners and in-town real estate agents. Sixth Street is already a path-less-traveled without adding another barrier to visitors parting with their dollars.

I am a resident of Blue Valley Acres and had to share how impressed I am with the hard work happening on Squaw Pass.

I drive this road daily, sometimes several times daily. I see the same flaggers and heavy-equipment operators day in and day out. For the last four months, I have gotten to know who smiles, who is in charge and who dresses warmly for the elements.

To the amazing volunteers, passport station staff, entertainment, service/product providers and sponsors:

Thank you for making our fifth annual Clear Creek Watershed Festival a success. What a wonderful way to celebrate this spectacular place and resilient community. We could not have done it without all of you. This unsolicited testimony sums up the value of all your efforts:

Ten years and counting. Hard to believe that I started writing for the Courant when Lynn Granger was Georgetown police judge, Bob Poirot was county commissioner, Bill Owens was governor and George W. Bush was president. Barack Obama had yet to make a splash on the national scene.

The Snow Mountain property on Floyd Hill is attracting attention from many corners of Clear Creek County. Some want to develop the property into a multiple-unit (560?) housing venture to raise the county property-tax base. Others want to preserve it as an open-space gateway to Clear Creek County for Interstate 70 travelers.

The recall of two state senators has and will continue to have implications on our democratic process for time to come. Had the recall proponents not been successful, we would be moving on; but they were, and as a result, there’s blood in the water. Now, groups disenchanted with their public officials for whatever reason will be more confident about following the recall path.

I wish to comment on my disappointment over the outcome of the Clear Creek Board of County Commissioners meeting to consider the Clear Creek County Open Space Commission’s request to move forward in an effort to acquire the former Williams (now Snow Mountain) property just south of the Floyd Hill overpass.

We hope you and your family have remained safe in this emergency. As you are aware, Clear Creek County has sustained significant damage to its infrastructure and private residences in certain parts of our community, namely from Idaho Springs and extending to the east end of the county.

I have been a patron of the recreation center in Idaho Springs for more than 10 years. I have found the facilities to be adequate, and the staff and management to be good. While the building is in pretty good shape, renovations are needed sooner or later. Current low-interest rates make sooner better.

Things have changed in Clear Creek in 2013 with the “new regime,” as it is being called. Elections generally do have consequences, and the change in two commissioner seats has been telling. For sure, it’s a different day.

In the Aug. 28 edition of the Courant, letter writer Etta Satter lambastes Commissioners Phil Buckland and Tom Hayden for flip-flopping on a commitment to negotiate to purchase the Snow Mountain property that in her mind was a solemn promise.

The 50th anniversary of “The March” is both a timely reminder about how far we’ve come and of how much we’re stilled mired in old ways of thinking. A year and a week ago in the March on Washington, Dr. Martin Luther King gave his “I Have a Dream” speech, which ranks in the pantheon of great deliveries. In it, he laid out a dream, a vision about justice and freedom.

Without that event, Barack Obama would likely just be some well-positioned university professor.

“Any man’s death diminishes me,” wrote the poet Donne, “because I am involved in mankind.” The philosopher Dr. Albert Schweitzer expanded on this sentiment with his ethic of ehrfurcht vor dem leben, or “reverence for life.”

“Ethics is nothing other than reverence for life,” Schweitzer wrote. “Reverence for life affords me my fundamental principle of morality, namely, that good consists in maintaining, assisting and enhancing life, and to destroy, to harm or to hinder life is evil.”

What a blast! The project at the Twin Tunnels, soon to be renamed since they’re no longer identical, is looking as if it’s rounding third base and heading for home. Light at the end of the tunnel will appear when daylight in Clear Creek is waning … after Halloween.

For many years, prisoners of war and those still missing in action had no official day of remembrance, yet their memory remained alive in the hearts of hundreds of thousands of Americans who knew them, loved them — and waited.

Note: This is the sixth and final column in a series on personal transformation

Over the years, I have taken to task those who hold capitalism to be the most liberating of economic systems. In theory it might be, but in practice, it depends heavily upon worker ants and bees dutifully fulfilling assigned roles to keep the engine of commerce humming smoothly.